Pages

"Wow, if we were in Cuba and had all this equipment . . . "

Olga Salanueva, wife of Cuban five anti-terrorist René González, describes her years as immigrant worker in US

"This was in Jackson Memorial Hospital. It’s the only public hospital in Miami-Dade County, but it has many resources and is very well equipped. I thought: Wow, if we were in Cuba and had all this equipment, the things we could do, with our doctors and the training they have! And that includes the way doctors, nurses, and other health care workers are trained to care for you as a human being. That’s why the U.S. government doesn’t want Cuba to advance, that’s why they’ve blockaded us."

In an interview, conducted Feb. 27, 2012, in Havana, Olga Salanueva recounted some of her experiences as an immigrant worker in the United States, where she lived and worked for four years before being deported back to her native Cuba. Her story is one that millions of workers in the United States, immigrant and native-born, will identify with.

Salanueva’s husband, René González, is one of five Cuban revolutionaries framed up by the U.S. government and fighting for their freedom. Incarcerated for more than 13 years, González was transferred in October 2011 from federal prison to “supervised release.” He is ordered to remain in the United States under the control of the federal courts’ probation office until October 2014.